The Dark by Jaden Wilkes

Author:Jaden Wilkes [Wilkes, Jaden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hawthorne Publishing

21

After that, Andromeda seemed reluctant to keep talking about her own part in all of it. Her voice cracked and her throat clenched tightly when I pressed her for details, so I drew her attention away to keep her calm. She’d already been through so much, since birth it seemed, that I couldn’t possibly pile it on even higher.

“Can you tell me anything about the...” My voice trailed off as I searched for something to call the beasts she’d named as her family.

“My family?” she asked gently.

“Yes, your family. Where did they come from? Are they your biological relatives?”

“They’re his experiments,” she said. “Some have been here for generations like me. Like Jack, the Minotaur.”

“I met him,” I said, recalling the bull-headed beast crashing through the wall.

“No, that wasn’t him. That was his attempt to recreate what his own father had made. Jack is getting old now, and might not have many years left.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, sensing her sadness.

“I’ve lost so many,” she replied. “Over the years there have been so many new ones, people brought in from the outside or custom orders, but the ones I grew up with hurt the most.”

“They would,” I said. “The rest of us might see them as monsters, but to you, they’re family.”

“Do you know when a monster stops being a monster?” she asked, looking up at me again.

“No, when?” I asked, thinking my first answer would be something about when you kill it, but I knew that wasn’t where her intention lay with her question.

“When you love it. The moment you love something unlovable, you change the way it appears in the world.”

“That’s very wise,” I said and kissed the top of her head. Her body was completely without tension; she had melted into my arms and I felt immense satisfaction being able to give her this gift. This moment of respite from the cruel realities of our world.

“I need to get cleaned up, and then I need to eat,” she said suddenly, pushing herself up onto her elbows again. “I believe there are clothes that will fit me in the red room at the end of the hall. The door is black, but the wallpaper is red silk. If you could please pick me out some new things while I shower.”

“Anything for you, love of my life.” I smiled, and pulled her up against me for a kiss. It didn’t matter that she smelled sour, of her horrific time spent at Vox’s mercy. It didn’t matter that she was an experiment or that I was one as well, nothing mattered in the entire world other than the fact that I loved her and my heart felt as if it would expand until it exploded just to contain the feelings I had for her.

When we were done, she rolled away from me, and we got up from our first night together. She stood and stretched and I caught a glimpse of needle marks spotting up and down the inside of her forearms as she lifted them above her head.

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